Search This Blog

Rush Fees

Rush fees — or, more formally: urgency surcharges — are what you charge extra for an assignment that has a short deadline compared to the amount of work involved or requires overtime or work outside normal business hours.

Before we move on, the subject has, of course, already been discussed on translator message boards and by translation bloggers and is nothing new. For example, I would like to call your attention to the following articles and discussions (just three):

Also before we move on, do notice how people said — several years ago — that if we didn't insist on rush rates, they would disappear. And look what's happening now. It's not hard to notice that rush fees are growingly less popular than they used to be. In other words, they are disappearing.

There is no universal definition of rush fees and how much should be charged and in what situations. Those are largely subjective, personal matters — and it may well be the preference of certain translators not to charge such additional fees, for a number of reasons. Let's focus on the forest rather than the trees.

For starters, I want to address some arguments against.

The principal argument against rush fees is that few people or companies are charging them any more and it's hard to swim against the tide, and clients don't like it.

Well, yes, but the other side of the coin is that — contrary to what some may naively believe — the wave of no rush fees will not pushing forward once it encounters your limits.

Rather, the opposite will happen and is already happening right now all around us: more and more of 5000 words due tomorrow morning, 7500 or 10,000 a day, what's next?

And it doesn't stop at fees. Clients and agencies will also likely, eventually, expect you to accept normal liability for your work in such cases (in some cases including indemnity), including the usual 'highest quality' (because their blind penny-pinching clients won't accept any less than that) and all sorts of tiny QA issues and not just the sort of serious mistranslations that shouldn't appear even in a rush job nobody had the time to check.

The other huge argument invoked against rush fees is empathy. And that is a false argument in a vast number of circumstances. Unless you'r working for public hospitals and orphanages.

That sort of empathy is mostly a compunction against taking some sort of 'unfair advantage' of a client's tough situation.

Let's set the record straight by asking some questions:

How difficult, exactly, is that situation?

What did the client do to bring it about or avoid it?

And what is required of you in result, and on what account?

Notably:

Are you effectively supposed to make a charitable donation to someone else's large and affluent business?

If you incline that way, chances are you're allowing yourself to be manipulated and exploited.

And what will your client be doing during that time, anyway — locking the office and going home at 5 p.m.? sleeping? having some family time?

Would it really put an economic strain on your client to compensate you adequately for your increased hardship which you take on your shoulders in order to relieve his hardship?

Because we aren't discussing only why the client needs the translation so quickly. The subject of discussion is why the client needs it so quickly and without paying for expedited service. In short, the question is:

Why does the client need or expect free expedited service?

These days you could also ask:

Is it really an unforeseen complication or...

is it rather a fixed item in your client's business model?

If the latter, what exactly sort of empathy should require you to become the sponsor of that model?

In summary, that sort of argument invoking your empathy is like asking you to empathize with people who can't or won't empathize with you. In some cases people who will institutionally exploit you if given the chance.

Again, let me stress this point somewhat forcefully because these days some linguists are notably lacking in reading comprehension as evidenced by the sort of comments, responses and questions you see on Facebook or message boards:

I'm not talking about a bona fide unpredicted accident happening to a person of limited means.

We all run into such situations from time to time. How frequent are they, though, compared to:

lack of preparation, planning and budgeting; or

lack of empathy for the person who eventually gets do that voluminous job, between Friday evening and Monday morning; or

just the fact that the particular client, in his mind, deserves to be served 'at once,sir!' (without having to pay extra for it); or

the fact that the job is being passed down and up the line of five different intermediaries, each of whom consumes a chunk of the time and fee?

Since I've already mentioned premium — both a premium investment of your time and effort together with a premium detriment to your health, family affairs, planning etc., and the premium service feature (expedited service) or premium benefit (getting things faster, getting a problem solved) call for premium pay and perfectly justify an expectation of it.

Just like the salaried worker who gets his overtime pay, sometimes regulated by statute, you are entitled to be paid more for the increased sacrifices you make. As a business owner, don't you deserve to be paid for the opportunities you're sacrificing (you're likely going to be half dead tomorrow)?

Empathy, here, speaks for you, not against you.

Besides, it's important to realize that while you may enjoy mingling with business types, up to and including CEO level in some cases, or politicians, artists and so on, receiving a faster-than-normal turnaround is not the birthright of a privileged class. Actually, many people belonging to a real privileged class will know better than to expect to be served by an army of underpaid peasants because they have received a demanding upbringing with a serious code of ethical values drilled into them.

It is not a privilege conferred with a business degree or company registration certificate or otherwise enjoyed by 'business customers', either — a serious business person understands that partnerships and favours are two-sided. No serious company is built on constantly asking for favours. Or constantly providing them to others, for no pay, at the expense of your time.

If you're still undecided as to whether you should apply rush fees to urgent assignments, I'll tell you how you can apply them in such a way as to make them go down more smoothly:

If the client questions the practice of rush fees, refer to independent authorities, both within the translation world (for maximum relevance) and without (to show that translation practice isn't idiosyncratic). Use the best authority available. Depending on the situation you may find it proper to add one or two more authorities for corroboration.

Be prepared to provide real reasons, though. You should have something better to say than, 'uh, because Association X said so,' or, 'we've always been doing that.'

Communicate your rush fees in advance: A forewarned client will find it easier to accept a 100% surcharge than someone who is surprised.

Similarly, an item from an official fee structure (follow the link to the PDF rate sheet) — a 'written policy' equal for everybody, as it were — will carry more authority than an improvised assessment. It should disarm or weaken any accusations of attempting an opportunistic ad-hoc act of overcharging (precisely because it's obviously not ad hoc).

Be brief to cut the grief. Make it a clean cut and not a festering wound. Like a good break-up. You can still smile and be corteous (naturally, you should). Don't leave openings for discussion. You must be closing the discussion, not inviting it.

Avoid hesitation. A client won't easily accept a proposal that even you don't seem to believe in. If you don't feel confident improvising, plan ahead and practice with a friend. (I'm serious, it's the same as practicing situational conversations before language exams.)

Be mindful, however, that most clients — especially business clients — are already well acquainted with the notion of overtime pay and expedited service fee, so don't feel obliged to take them seriously when they are playing stupid and pretending it's the first time they hear such outlandish nonsense. (You should show surprise at that point, ask them how that's possible etc., and if you get them twitching — you'll know why.)

Be prepared not only to be confident in your presentation of the issue but also to put your foot down despite a lack of consensus. Of course they will try to negotiate. Don't be surprised by that. Once you've provided the rationale for your fees, however, the onus is on your client to show what's wrong with them, why they don't or shouldn't apply in his case, or why he should receive special treatment.

Provide comparison for reference. Say how much it would cost with a longer deadline even if your client isn't interested in the standard deadline. You don't have to be elaborate, it will suffice to show the standard fee and apply the surcharge on top of it.

If appropriate, indicate how much it would have cost if they had waited longer. Since they want to make some savings, show them they have already made some. You can also reaffirm that your fees in general and rush fees in particular are reasonable and not as high as in some other places — if that's true, of course. You can mention any other fact that makes your pricing look attractive.

Give them choice and discuss alternatives. Any initial proposal from your client is just that, and subject to a counteroffer by you, which may very well be more attractive to your client even though it came from you. Give the client even several options to choose from, and the client will be more likely to choose something and stick with it than if you dictated only one possible arrangement. You can also point your client gently towards an alternative so that the client thinks it was his own idea.

Discuss the benefit of proper planning, ahead bookings and permanent reservations if relevant to your client's situation, so that your client can optimize expenses if he cares to make the effort it entails. This gives you more credibility when you ask for the surcharges.

However, if you don't mind rush work as long as it pays rush fees, make sure your client knows this rather than getting the wrong impression that you dislike rush jobs in general and would prefer to avoid them. (In which case the client might take his rush jobs, with or without rush fees, to a different translator as an intended favour to you.)

Make sure your fees don't look like penalties. Avoid phrasing such as: 'I need to levy an urgency surcharge,' unless perhaps on some sort of court or government business or unless you really are penalizing someone's chaotic ways to drive a lesson home. Otherwise restyle your rush fees (cognitive restructuring) as a neutral or positive expedited service option. (Do so without making your normal service look slow or deprioritized. Hire a copywriter if you can't find the right words.)

Devise a compassionate discount if relevant — that way you can show your client that you aren't indifferent to his predicament, even though you won't be making that predicament your own for no additional pay.

You can still develop a flexible plan for those clients to whose situation a compassionate discount is not relevant but whose need for rush service without rush fees is not as disagreeable as in most other cases — still, keep in mind that those guys should first of all be booking time slots in your calendar in advance. If they can't be bothered, it's their problem and not yours.

Speaking of flexibility:

You don't need to take a pay cut just because there is a disagreement about your pay structure. One of the many possible pay structures, to be precise. Change the structure, keep the fee. For example you can convince the client to make some ahead bookings or buy a service plan or just say that your base rate is higher when it is a flat rate with no increase on account of urgency.

Similarly, if a client is not comfortable with the extent of your particular rush fees, that doesn't mean the client disagrees with the concept of rush fees in general. Don't make it an all-or-nothing situation. See if a balance can be struck, especially by taking the base rate up a little and getting the client to give you a warning when something big is coming.

Again, look at what exactly is making your client uncomfortable and the reason why. Then try to address it or work around it.

Some clients just need you to sit down with them and explain your fee structure or the fairness of it. Others need reassurance that they aren't being overcharged, especially in an opportunistic ad-hoc improvised way. Still others need more predictability and budgeting certainty in general — or less amplitude and a flatter structure overall.

Remember that you can make it a give and take. And if you give a lot, you can ask at least some. For example if you waive rush fees, you can induce your client to give you forewarning and keep you informed about the status of potential projects to the point that there is effectively less and possibly very little rush. That's much like a booking in effect.

Or you can try and make sure that you get a decent amount of work from that client which is not rush jobs but normal jobs with a normal deadline. That way the absence of rush fees is a favour for a key client, not a semi-freebie for someone who hires other translators for non-rush work.

Don't give up too easily. Some people will reject one rationale but accept another. For example they may disagree with the notion of paying extra for more volume or faster turnaround, especially when there is a legitimate need for it, but perhaps wouldn't ask you to work 20 hours straight or lose your night's sleep if they knew that was involved and might be inclined to compensate it adequately.

Others, on the other hand, perhaps don't care about what they see as essentially 'your problem' (overtime, night work etc.) in a B2B situation, but they may understand paying for what is their benefit (e.g. getting things faster, getting a problem out of their way) or even a feature of the service they receive (e.g. expedited service).

It should be easier for you to accept a less than ideal description of your bonus pay than for them to pay you a bonus they don't believe in.

Don't presume. Ask and find out. Adapt. Don't give up all just because you can't keep all. You won't look very professional or very serious if you withdraw easily and totally from something that was like 50% of your original quotation.

And remember that being flexible or even compassionate doesn't necessarily mean being the sponsor of someone richer than you.

If you do have a charitable bone in your body, there are plenty of charities in need of translation assistance.

Last but not least, remember that if we don't charge rush fees, then many more jobs will become rush jobs than is really necessary. If we don't even as much as comment on the rush, then chances are practically all jobs will become rush jobs.

Disclaimers and all that jazz

REPOSTING AND RIGHTS: Don't worry about copyrights and stuff when printing or sharing these posts for your own benefit or that of your friends. In fact, the point of them is to be read. You can also repost them whole if you think that will reach the audience better than linking to my blog here, or if you want to host a vigorous discussion on the subject among your commenters; it's all fine as long as you don't make a blog that's simply a copy of my blog. Feel free to translate the posts, too, or adapt them, just please mention the fact you did so on your own. Understand, however, that by reposting my posts in any way or form, including paper, you will not gain any sort of copyright or interest in my own copyright, let alone moral rights, other than limited protection of any significant value you actually add, where any such rights such as you may so acquire shall not restrict my own rights and freedom as the author or in any way impede the free, unpaid circulation of the material I created. Always credit me as the author.

NOT PROOFREAD OR EDITED: The posts are not always edited and proofread before posting. They are intended to represent the typical standard of blogs posts rather than printed works; I apologize for any inconvenience you may experience as a result. I simply prefer to write another post or five rather than either go back and reread old stuff or complete five rounds of editing before hitting the send button; this is more or less the point of having a blog. Still welcome to let me know if you find a typo or if anything's unclear, which may very well occasionally be the case due to the timing, such as late at night or in between urgent projects. Hence, before reposting any of this in a more serious setting than a blog or forum post, please drop me a line to give me the chance to apply some finishing touch or even ask me to write a proper article, which I'll be happy to do subject to time constraints.

NO ADVICE, NO CLIENT RELATIONSHIP: Nothing here consitutes legal, business, marketing, career or any other advice, at least not in the sense of establishing a lawyer-client or consultant-client relationship, not in the least because I didn't get a dime and because any implied contract is (hereby, herewith, etc.) expressly disclaimed. If what you find here is useful and informs your course of action, you still need to get proper legal advice appropriate to your jurisdiction and your unique factual situation, without exception. Likewise, consult such other advisors as are appropriate for proper business, marketing, career or other advice relevant to your situation. Whether or not you consult them, you agree to assume and do assume the responsibility and risk, with the consequence being, without limitation, that you can't sue me (and agree not to try) on the grounds of having relied on anything whatsoever on this blog.

NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIRD-PARTY SITES: Any links on this blog that don't expressly lead to other posts here should be presumed to lead to external sites that are outside my control. I am not responsible for the contents of such sites or their availability. Linking does not imply endorsement. By clicking on a link you expressly and enthusiastically declare for the benefit of any pesky government official anywhere that you did so out of the pure, unadulterated, spontaneous desire of your heart miraculously coupled with the informed and deliberate consent of your conscious, sovereign, unbroken will.

NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMMENTS YOU READ: If you find something illegal, obscene, hateful, etc., in the comments, let me know and, if I agree with your assessment, I'll axe the comment. You are hereby warned that I don't control the comments otherwise, they are the product of their own authors' expression. If you don't accept the risk that you might see something objectionable, don't read the comments.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR COMMENTS YOU POST: By posting a comment you agree to assume and do assume full and sole responsibility at law for posting whatever you post, even if I saw it and did not delete it, and even though you also agree that I may delete any comment at ultimately my sole discretion, with no liability to you, though I'll normally do so only if I find it to be spammy or more than just a little offensive. Further, you agree that if you subsequently decide to delete or modify your comment, you will need to do so on your own, and agree to do so on your own without involving me in the process. You agree not to post anything which is illegal, hateful, defamatory, spammy, in breach of a confidentiality obligation (or otherwise contains anything you are not free to disclose, including without limitation personal data) or infringes on anyone's legally protected rights. Advertising is forbidden.